SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS OF THE V3 LOOP IN BRAIN AND SPLEEN OF PATIENTS WITHHIV ENCEPHALITIS

Infection with a particularly neurovirulent strain of HIV has been hyp othesized to explain why only a subset of patients develops HIV enceph alitis. We studied the third hypervariable region (V3) of multiple clo nes from both brains and spleens of three patients who died with HIV e ncephalitis, to see if there was a molecular signature associated with neurological disease. Clones from the spleen and brain of individual patients showed significant nucleic acid homology and had envelope seq uences characteristic of macrophage-tropic viruses. No brain-specific unique sequences were observed, suggesting that while CNS virus is mac rophage tropic there is no evidence in the V3 envelope region studied to suggest a specific neurotropic variant.